States’ apathy may derail govt’s universal education plan

NEW DELHI: There is more trouble for the department of elementary education's flagship programme — Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Till now annual plans for only 6 states have been approved.

Officials in the department say that by July, plans for 8 more states will be ready. However, that leaves 12 states without any plans, which means no work or funds. With half the year already through, the goal of all children in school or back to school by December seems really a long way off.

However, there is some good news for the department, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are expected to meet the year-end goal.

As per the stated goals of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, all children should be schools, education guarantee centres, alternate schools or back to school camps by the end of 2003. The programme has already been suffering from state apathy. The inability of many states to send their annual plans. States which are yet to send in their plans are West Bengal, Orissa, Punjab, Nagaland , Manipur, Meghalaya, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand among others.

Plans for Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andaman & Nicobar, Haryana, HP and UP have already been cleared. This month the plans for Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and MP should be cleared.

According to HRD ministry's implementation framework, the first instalment is to be released in April and the second in September. According to officials, there have been delays in house to house survey to estimate the total number of children and evolving plans to take care of out of school children.

The system for release of funds requires that each state prepares district elementary education plans. These are appraised by a team constituted by the national and state level implementation society for SSA. The annual plan is approved by the national sarva shiksha abhiyan mission on the basis of a appraisal report, availability of central plan funds, and the commitment of the state regarding financial resources.